With some therapeutic treatments, in particular irradiating patients for the treatment of tumors, it is necessary to provide a plurality of catheters in the tissue. To this end, the conventional apparatus as, for instance, described in EP1374951 provides a plate part, provided with a number of openings for guiding the catheters and/or needles.
With the treatment of prostate tumors in men, for instance, the conventional use of this apparatus, also referred to as template, is to fix the plate part against the skin and to insert the needles into the prostate with the aid and with guidance of the plate part. After placing the needles, the needles are clamped in the plate part, or a plate part is used which makes it difficult for the needles to move.
Because the plate part is fixed on the skin, with swelling of the tissue—often precisely caused by introducing the needles—the skin will press against the plate part so that the plate part with needles can be pressed away from the prostate up to as much as 20 mm. This can give rise to an undesired situation, which can result in an incorrect irradiation. To correct this, the needles need to be pressed back again regularly or before each repeated irradiation, often with diagnostic guidance. This operation is not only very time-consuming, but also particularly unpleasant and even painful for the patient. In addition, because of the accompanying pain, extra anesthetics often need to be given to the patient.